Dangerous Secrets Read Online Free PDF

smiled that Dario relaxed.
    He needn’t have worried. It was like drinking bottled sunshine.
    “Wonderful,” Charity murmured. Dario beamed and disappeared into the kitchen.
    “Well.” Nick sat back in his chair. He hadn’t taken his eyes from her face through the entire wine pouring. “I didn’t realize I’d invited royalty out to dinner. Why didn’t you tell me you were the queen of Parker’s Ridge?”
    She smiled. “It was a little over the top, wasn’t it?”
    “Absolutely.” He looked over his shoulder at Emilio chatting with some guests, then back at her. “Are you guys secretly related?”
    “No, of course not.” Though at times, belonging to the big, boisterous Luraghi family sounded wonderful. She was an only child and her parents were dead. Her only family was her frail and ailing aunt and uncle. “I, um, helped Emilio’s daughter last year when she came to the library to do some research.”
    “From what I’ve seen, they’re grateful for something a little more serious than explaining the Dewey decimal system to a student.”
    She sipped some more of that wonderful wine. “We use the Library of Congress classification system.”
    “Charity…”
    She sighed and told a prettier version of the truth. “Emilio’s family is great. It’s a big one and they are all very close. Sometimes, though, that closeness can get a little…intense. His youngest daughter, Anna, felt hemmed in and used to come in a lot to the library for research projects. We became friends. She’d been having problems in school, but after a while she got back on track.”
    It had been much more serious than that. Anna Luraghi had been cutting classes, dabbling in drugs, and moving arrow-straight toward the hard stuff. She’d fancied herself in love with a nasty little weasel Charity suspected of being a pusher.
    Anna had been on the road to self-destruction, so desperately unhappy that Charity’s heart had gone out to her. She’d spent hours and hours talking with Anna, who clearly needed an adult she could respect outside the family to talk to. Emilio was a wonderful father, caring and involved, but his idea of dealing with a problem was to yell at it until it went away.
    Anna was now at MIT, doing fabulously well, dating the cutest computer nerd on the Eastern Seaboard. Ever since, Emilio and his family treated Charity like she could walk on water.
    Nick had listened to her with a slight smile on his lips, eyes narrowed, intent. His eyes were just magnificent. Dark, cobalt blue framed by black lush eyelashes any woman would kill for. They were beautiful, yet somehow managed to fit his purely male face.
    “There’s more to it than that, but you’re clearly not talking, so we’ll skip over to another topic of conversation. What should it be? The weather? Books? Movies? I’d like to rule out politics and religion on principle. Other than that, I’m fine with anything you choose.”
    This was startling. Charity wasn’t used to men who actually paid attention to what she said. Who let the woman get the conversational ball rolling.
    Most dates listened with half an ear until the conversation bumped around to their main topic of interest—themselves. They’d make exceptions for their jobs, cars, and, lately, plasma TVs, but that was about it.
    So Nick Ames was not only the sexiest man she’d ever met, he was also highly intelligent and perceptive. It meant that the gentle irony she sometimes used, and that always zinged right over her date’s head, had to be curbed.
    She smiled. “Well, books are always good.”
    “I should imagine so, seeing as how you’re a librarian.”
    “No Marian the Librarian cracks,” Charity warned, alarmed. She’d heard them all.
    His eyes were so very blue. He held up a large hand, index and middle fingers raised. His mouth tightly repressed a smile. “Not a one, Scout’s honor.”
    “Were you a Boy Scout?”
    “Made Eagle. Yes, ma’am. Racked up the highest number of points